Vast Beatles museum in Liverpool to open in 2028, hailed as 'extraordinary' by Paul McCartney
A 100,000 sq ft Beatles museum in Liverpool, an upgraded Beatles Story moving from the Royal Albert Dock to the former St John's Market, is planned to open in 2028 under new ownership by Apple Corps, with Paul McCartney calling the plans 'extraordinary'.
Vast Beatles museum in Liverpool to open in 2028, hailed as 'extraordinary' by Paul McCartney
A four-times-bigger Beatles Story at St John's Market
Liverpool is to unveil a new 100,000 sq ft visitor attraction about the Beatles, planned to open in 2028. The scheme is a major upgrade of the Beatles Story, the museum that opened at the Royal Albert Dock in 1990, and Paul McCartney has hailed the plans as "extraordinary".
Ownership will pass to the Beatles company Apple Corps, making it the band's first official fan experience in their home city. The museum will leave the docks for the former St John's Market shopping centre, close to Lime Street railway station, which has lain unused since closing in 2024. The new site will let it become four times bigger than its current home.
The attraction is billed as a "multi-hour experience" recreating settings from the group's history, among them:
- the childhood homes in Liverpool and the city's Cavern venue
- the nightclubs where they cut their teeth in Hamburg
- Abbey Road and New York's Shea Stadium, where Beatlemania provoked such fevered screaming that the band couldn't hear themselves play
- the building on London's Savile Row where they played their final rooftop concert in 1969
St Johns Beacon to become a Yellow Submarine attraction
Apple Corps will also take over and renovate Liverpool's second-tallest building, St Johns Beacon, a 450ft tower whose viewing gallery closed and whose radio station tenants vacated in 2024. The tower will become a separate attraction themed around the band's whimsical and psychedelic animated film Yellow Submarine.
McCartney and Starr welcome the plans
McCartney said he finds it incredible and humbling that people are still interested in the band's story: "I love Liverpool. It's part of who I am, it's part of who the Beatles are." He added that had they been told this would happen when they were hanging out and getting started, they would never have believed it.
Ringo Starr celebrated the plans, saying that deep down he is still a scouser, and that Liverpool was and still is a music city. On the project, he added:
"The beat goes on."
Andy Burnham called the plans the kind of ambition he wants to see more of across Britain, saying the charitable arm should show young artists that a path exists from making music at home or in small local spaces all the way to worldwide fame.
Liverpool mayor Steve Rotheram pointed out that visitors already make long journeys to reach the birthplace of the four lads that shook the earth, and said the plans create a world-class destination giving millions more fans a reason to make the pilgrimage to their spiritual home.
Charity fund, Savile Row museum and project context
The project is helmed by Apple Corps in tandem with Liverpool city council and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, with UK government support. Financial details of the project and its partnerships have not been disclosed.
A new charity, the Apple Corps Liverpool Trust, will receive a portion of every ticket sold and use that revenue to fund initiatives for local musicians. Apple Corps chief executive Tom Greene compared the plans with Elvis Presley's Graceland in Memphis or Dolly Parton's Dollywood in Tennessee, calling it a world-class destination for fans in the centre of the city where the story started.
Greene is also overseeing a renovation of 3 Savile Row, a seven-floor museum due to open in 2027 with rooftop access. It will recreate the building's in-house studio where the band recorded the Let It Be album, alongside Apple Corps archive showcases and temporary exhibitions.
The opening ties into a wider moment for the band: a four-film biopic project helmed by director Sam Mendes is in production, also arriving in 2028, and sets and props from those films will be reused for the recreated environments in the new iteration of the Beatles Story.
